Frank, I don't know who you really are or what you really think. No one on this board does. Yet you consider it acceptable to casually invoke Doug's wife like that? You don't get to be that familiar with people when you consistently show up to the party wearing a cloak and carrying a dagger.

Even if we forget your long-standing status on this site as cipher, this was clearly out of line considering both my prior responses to you and your fractious history with Doug.

You are too dysfunctional to either understand this or act on the knowledge. I am beyond tired of dealing with the aftermath. So let me help us both out: You will not comment on a lack of response to anything you say or in any other way bait people in the future. If you do, or you respond to this with any kind of "aw shucks" or other flippancy, you are done here.

You should also consider making a sincere apology to Doug, one absent of any humor or dissembling. Google "sincere apology" if you need help.

Are you being treated differently than everyone else? Yes. You've earned it. The baleful Eye of Sauron is on you and you should act accordingly.

I am not going to further explain or qualify this. Your practice is to test such boundaries rather than trying to understand and act on their intention. If you have any doubts as to whether a post is appropriate, I would suggest you keep your mouth shut.

I am shocked that my last post was so shocking but will say to Doug I'm sorry, because no matter what I do like the guy. I actually missed him. Doug is not fond of me but I am sorry if he thinks I meant anything evil. With Twitter being quit scary I do want this forum to be safe. Much love to Doug and family.

Much love to everybody, including Wyatt, who is coarse with me. Have a good holiday to you too Wyatt.

FrankChurch wrote:I am shocked that my last post was so shocking but will say to Doug I'm sorry, because no matter what I do like the guy.

You really don't understand why what you did was out of line - "I am shocked that my last post was so shocking"

But despite this surprise, you're saying you're sorry anyway, "because no matter what I do like the guy."

No matter what? In this case, "what" is trying to score a cheap laugh at my wife's expense, while my back was turned - KNOWING my back was turned, since Steve told you as much; and somehow, the negative response to your doing this shocks you. You, who cry "low blow" and "cheap shot" more than anyone else in your weight class.

Where I come from, we say "I'm sorry" as an acknowledgement that we understand what we did or said was wrong, that we caused a hurt (intentional or not), and wish to make amends - not because you "like the guy."

You have no idea WHY what you did was wrong. By your own admission, you find all the hub-bub shocking. But if you're apologizing without comprehending the WHY, it's just empty words, said because you at least get the sense on some level you might be sitting in hot water. Until you understand why what you did was unacceptable, "I'm sorry" is devoid of meaning. It's not an apology. It's a turn of phrase.

And wrapping it in a lot of blanket off-point 'peace and love, protect the forums, ohmigod the Twitters!' rhetoric in an effort to blunt the whole thing was sad, even for you. ("Much love to Doug and family"? So you can invoke Peggy by name to be a smart-ass, but not for a kindness? There's so much Fail in that, my red pens all dried up at once.)

I won't even get into word choice and why "coarse" was either careless or, given its connotation of mistreatment, brazen. That's Rick's to mull. But the third knight of the last crusade would probably opine that you "chose poorly."

Rick: I'm sorry, but given the foregoing, I'm exactly where I was yesterday.

Frank: You had one job today. You did it in a slipshod fashion. As a result, the camel whose back you broke is still dead. Requiem Aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. There is no prayer for the soul of the straw you stacked too high. It's just so much trash to be swept away.

FrankChurch wrote:I am shocked that my last post was so shocking but will say to Doug I'm sorry, because no matter what I do like the guy. I actually missed him. Doug is not fond of me but I am sorry if he thinks I meant anything evil. With Twitter being quit scary I do want this forum to be safe. Much love to Doug and family.

Much love to everybody, including Wyatt, who is coarse with me. Have a good holiday to you too Wyatt.

Frank, I asked you for one simple thing: to look up what a sincere apology is and make one. But instead you made one straight out of the Book of Terrible Apologies. You admit no fault, no regret, show no sign you understand what you did was wrong, and give the recipient no comfort that you will not repeat your abuse. It is an apology that fails on every level.

You cannot live in anonymity, even hide even your personal opinions behind the flak of brief almost indecipherable comments and leaving links unsupported by your own reasoning, and then expect to be familiar enough with people here to say what said here and what you have said in the past. It is brutally unfair to those people who have given of themselves and exposed their private lives here for you to take advantage of that constantly. People enjoyed the conversations here because they were able to make a personal and emotional investment. They were able to do so because others did and they felt safe. But what you do, Frank, is take advantage of that. You enjoy that safety as a place from which to stick spanners in the works.

You are not their friend, Frank. You are no one's friend here, not mine, not anyone's. There is an element of trust and caring in friendship and your actions show you expect to receive that from others without ever giving any in return. As a result, you continually disrupt and cheapen conversations here as well as chronically insult and harass others. You present the illusion of being a friendly, means-well person - you see yourself as a "good guy" without doing ANY of the things good guys do. Anyone can say "much love", demonstrating you aren't full of shit requires appropriate and defining action. What you do is sit behind your bulwark of anonymity and disengagement and take shots. You post brief, unsupported messages poking at the comments and opinions of people who are trying to have a discussion in good faith. If you do not get the response you want to first become petulant about it and then begin taking personal shots.

You're the bad guy here, Frank. You have been for a long time. This is your fault. And you won't change. You can't even apologize to one person properly.

I have been asked not to ban you because you haven't broken a specific rule. I disagree. This is a private forum containing public discussion. As any owner and operator does, I have the right to ask for any conduct I want from anyone I want as a condition for their use of the my service. This is not a free speech issue. I have this right specifically to protect myself and the people I serve from harassment and disruptive behavior. Demanding that this protection come only when a local law or ordinance is broken or a specific posted rule makes it impossible to handle someone like Frank who is determined to get under people's skins while being very careful to run up right to the edge of posted rules. It is the reason we have public and private spaces.

Harlan himself would tell you this. Harlan and I have had this conversation before. Harlan is also on the public record about private "censorship" from when a vicious Gary Groth letter was published and truncated by the CBG:

The First Amendment -- treasured above all else by some of us, and misused as sourly as the Fifth by thugs, by some others of us -- does not guarantee the right of extortion. And it is nothing but extortion when one blabbery gas-bag threatens all and sundry with tantrum and lawsuits and vilification and yellow journalism, if he isn't permitted to rant and rave and stomp his widdle feet at whatever length he decides he needs to balm his aching soul.

Freedom of speech means letting someone else talk once in a while.

Yours in holy suppression,Harlan Ellison

I feel sourly misused, Frank. There are plenty of people who have been silenced or curtailed here because of your inability to behave decently.

I understand the attitude of this forum in rules and moderation has always been to take a strong stance against banning anyone without repeated rules violations. I respect that and the people taking that stance. I would not kick out the legs from it. Therefore I will not ban you. But I have now lost my last moderator and my last helper due to your actions. I respect that as well because I have to deal with you about twice a year and it makes me want to strangle baby seals. Regardless, I cannot bear the burden you place on this place alone. So where does that leave me?

And the rest of the forum posters, I came to you and asked you to handle this yourselves or lose this place. What I got was a few half-hearted suggestions and make plaintive posts about how this place should not go away. There were many things you could have done, individually or as a unit, to correct this. For one, if just a half-dozen of you had placed Frank on the foe/ignore list, that would certainly have snowballed. I don't know what else you might have done, I just know no one tried. You not only gave me no help, you also continued to undercut Steve and offer him almost no support. I don't see that anyone here valued this place enough to try to save it. As Harlan is fond of saying, no snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible.

These forums will be shut down on January 1st. They will remain closed until such time that I am able to secure a new moderator (applications are open) and put in new forums with some segregation that can insure people can have discussions with some degree of safety.

To take some of the heat off Rick -- though he will insist it's his to take -- the closure was my suggestion. I am done with trying to corral your escapades and keep others from reacting angrily...getting themselves in trouble in the process. By refusing to work with me, refusing to do those things I repeatedly asked you to do (and not do) you've made moderating here an impossible task. Other posters rightly looked to me for assistance, and yet every single time I act, you quickly revert to old habits and anger someone else. Your contrition is short-lived, and as Rick notes, apparently insincere. It makes me look like the fool. Rick's post is, as always, concise and spot on.

So effective January 1st I am done moderating. Without a moderator the forums cannot function effectively...we've been there and done that. And under the circumstances, giving you a free hand is certainly strongly discouraged. So until Rick can reset the rules and find someone who is able to effectively moderate, we're going dark.

- I love to find adventure. All I need is a change of clothes, my Nikon, an open mind and a strong cup of coffee.

If this place is causing grief to those who run and manage it then it's time to move on.

Frank I am convinced there is no guile in you. You genuinely don't realize how you come across. You seem to lack the ability to step back and look at what you write and intuit how it will sound to someone who has no access to your intentions. It's not your fault, really, or anybody's. Maybe it's just the nature of this strange beast, the Internet.

Maybe some future anthropologist will make a study of these online communities, how they form, and coalesce, and pass. I have enjoyed it all and regret nothing.

If any of the regular posters are interested communicate with me privately before Jan 1st and I'll give you a personal email address and I'll even tell you my real name.

“We must not always talk in the marketplace,” Hester Prynne said, “of what happens to us in the forest.”-Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

I think of all the distraction and final exam disruption that I did to Rick W. a few years ago, as well as agita for Steve and Harlan. And hell, I think that was mostly two major incidents and obsessive double-posting - Frank has been causing major incidents regularly for how many years? Rick and Steve deserve a break. We should all put aside our desires and give these two guys a giant thank you and appreciation for service to the forum and Harlan Ellison.

And I say shut it down.

And in the future if the interest is there, maybe start it up again.

Frank, I'm not one to give advice to you. All I'll say is take this rejection sincerely into your heart. Don't fool yourself, the whole fucking thing is shutting down because of your actions. You don't think that you did anything wrong, but probably everyone else here involved thinks that you did. I guess you need to decide which reality that you want to live in. And I sincerely wish you well, no matter your decision. There's no room for more hate in this world.

Thanks, everyone, I enjoyed the forums, especially Spill Yer Guts. Rick and Steve, you are tolerant, generous-soul good guys, I also wish you two the best. Thank you for your monumental efforts to keep this wild west forum alive.

Tim

p.s. - Rick and Steve, what would the moderator duties be? Just curious, thanks.